Date: 30 Jul 2001 11:19:05 +0100 From: Rolf Neugebauer <neugebar@dcs.gla.ac.uk> To: "Idar Tollefsen" <Idar.Tollefsen@baerum.kommune.no> Cc: <freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org>, <dburr@borg-cube.com> Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD on an AlphaPC 164LX - Alpha newbie needs help Message-ID: <ysqu1zuoh2d.fsf@therese.dcs.gla.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: "Idar Tollefsen"'s message of "Mon, 30 Jul 2001 10:36:18 %2B0200" References: <sb6538c1.098@mail.baerum.kommune.no>
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"Idar Tollefsen" <Idar.Tollefsen@baerum.kommune.no> writes: > Donald Burr of Borg, [snip] > > The FreeBSD/alpha INSTALL.TXT file mentions: In some cases, it is > > possible to switch between AlphaBIOS (or ARC) firmware and SRM. > > > > Is this possible with my hardware? If so, how do I set it up? > > If not, then I guess I will have to flash to an SRM image. > > If I do this, is it possible to flash back to AlphaBIOS if I > > should ever desire to? Or is it possible to somehow boot WinNT > > from within SRM? > > Yes, you need SRM. No, it can't hold both SRM and AlphaBIOS, > and no, you can't boot NT from SRM (at least to my knowledge). > You'll have to choose one of them. You can find the latest of > both here: > > ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/index.html > > From a previous posting I made to a Linux list, it should be > possible to revert back to AlphaBIOS later simply by updating > the firmware again with the latest version of AlphaBIOS. > I haven't tried it though. This is indeed possible. However, you might not want to flash too often. Apart from the risk of getting it wrong, I vaguely recall some discussion over on the Alpha/Linux mailing list that this is not a good idea to do too often. In the past, I occasionally booted a different firmware from a floppy or network just like you would boot an OS. That essentially gets you into another firmware. For example, I have "booted" the srm and/or AlphaBIOS image from the debug monitor (yet another alpha firmware) and then used it to boot Linux. Ugly, but, IIRC, it worked for me. [snip graphics and network card stuff] > > * Windows NT has this nifty little software called "FX!32" that > > lets you run Windows NT/x86 binaries on the Alpha. I *believe* > > that there is a similar piece of software available for Linux/alpha. > > What about FreeBSD? NetBSD? > > There's supposed to be emulation available to run Linux binaries, but > I have a feeling that only applies to the i386 platform. Others will > probably be able to give you a more definitve answer. You should be able to run Alpha/Linux binaries on Alpha/FreeBSD. However, there are only very few Alpha/Linux binary only tools out there, e.g., Compaq's C and Fortran compiler. > I suppose the program you refer too is em86 for Linux/Alpha, which > would let you run Linux/i386 binaries. I haven't seen anything like > it for FreeBSD, but it shouldn't bee needed anyway if the previously > mentioned emulation works on Alpha. Besides, I could never get em86 > to work on Linux/Alpha anyway. The last time I tried em86 on Linux it was quite buggy, i.e., crashed my box, and, IIRC, there was no maintainer for it at the time. IIRC em86 wasn't quite as cunning as FX!32 as it didn't incrementally binary translate/optimise the Ix86 binary and stored the result for future use. In practise, I haven't had the need for intel emulation sofar, as with Tru64 emulation and libraries (part of the ports collection: emulators/osf1_base) both netscape and acroread work. All the other tools I use are available in source code form and are in the ports collection. Rolf To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the messagehome | help
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